Κυριακή 21 Φεβρουαρίου 2021
Η στρατιωτική δομή τής ταξικής κοινωνίας
Ο αδύναμος, ο ενδεής (όχι απαραίτητα φτωχός) άνθρωπος έχει πάνω του χαραγμένο με πυρακτωμένο σίδερο το σήμα της απομάκρυνσής του από την στρατηγική δομή της κοινωνίας, άρα και από την ίδια την στρατηγική ως θεώρηση πολέμου.
Σάββατο 20 Φεβρουαρίου 2021
2 σημεία αφαίρεσης..
Κάποια σημεία προς διερεύνηση, αφορώντα συνάψεις και συνδέσεις αφαιρετικών πτυχών δομών ή καταστάσεων που ενώ δεν υφίστανται ως καθαυτές μπορούμε να τις τανύσουμε σαν να ήταν δυνατόν να υπάρξουν καθαυτές.
Σε 2 αριθμημένα σημεία:
Κάνεις υπομονή και κρατάς ένα ημερολόγιο. Θα γίνει κι' αυτό σκόνη..
Το Iran πρέπει να διατηρήσει την εθνική κρατική ενότητά του..
Τα μαρξιστικά και τα αναρχικά διανοητικά αδιέξοδα..
4 κρίσιμα δεδομένα για το Ιρακ και το Ιράν σήμερα.
Τρίτη 16 Φεβρουαρίου 2021
Armed Forces Linked to Iran-Backed Cleric Mobilize in Baghdad and Other Iraqi Cities
Hundreds of members of the so-called Peace Companies, affiliated to the Iran-backed Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, were deployed in several Iraqi governorates including Baghdad, Karbala, and Najaf on Monday and Tuesday this week.
The Iraqi armed faction’s mobilization followed a warning posted on the Twitter account of al-Sadr’s adviser Saleh Muhammad Al-Iraq, in which he spoke of an alleged agreement between "the Ba’ath and ISIS" to carry out attacks on holy Shia shrines.
The movement took place even as the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, tweeted on Monday stressing that statecraft in Iraq could not be achieved by “encroaching” on religious and national symbols and sanctities, by strikes on institutions or by blocking roads, but rather through supporting the government.
Eyewitnesses in Baghdad told IranWire that the Peace Companies had been deployed in the areas of Al-Kadhimiya, Al-Azhamiya, and neighborhoods east of the capital, as well as in Najaf, Karbala, and in the south of Babel.
Images obtained by IranWire show members of the armed group amassing in some of these areas, which locals caused terror and panic among civilians.
Amjad Al-Uqabi, an Iraqi MP and member of the Parliamentary Energy Committee, has defended the Peace Companies as “protectors of the nation”, adding in a post on Twitter that “Whoever wants to harm the land of Iraq is delusional”. In support of this, the former deputy of the Shia Sadrist Movement, Hakim Al-Zamili, posted a tweet in which he declared that Iraqi holy sites were a “red line”.
The deployment of the Peach Companies coincides with a wave of local crime targeting activists in several southern governorates. Residents of Najaf have accused the Peace Companies of targeting them against the backdrop of a literary seminar last Friday. Followers of al-Sadr considered the event to be provocative as it commemorated the first anniversary of the "Najaf Massacre", supporters of the Iran-linked cleric stormed an anti-government protest, killing and wounding dozens of people.
Πηγή:
Armed Forces Linked to Iran-Backed Cleric Mobilize in Baghdad and Other Iraqi Cities
Labor Activists Slam Government’s New Contracts Proposal
A leaked letter signed by Iran’s Vice President for Legal Affairs addressed to the Social Security Organization has found its way onto social media, and disturbed the sleep of workers up and down the country.
The letter, which is dated January 27, 2021 and signed by Pejman Mohammadi, a coordination and planning deputy at the body’s Department of Legal Affairs, appears to dismantle years of built-up expectations for the basic treatment of experienced employees.
It states that from March 2021 onward, any employer in Iran can reconsider any employee, regardless of his or her background, record and consecutive years of experience, as a novice worker. He or she can be offered a new contract based on the minimum wage and benefits without the standard wage increase, and without taking into account their years of employment.
Pejman Mohammadi then reacted to workers' protests that erupted on Tuesday, February 9, saying that the letter was not a hard-and-fast rule and was written only to help the Social Security Organization amend its software for calculating premiums and years of service. But labor activists think otherwise.
***
Labor activists believe that the letter, which was signed by the Vice President for Legal Affairs and addressed to the Social Security Organization, deliberately sidelines workers' rights and is contrary to the general spirit of Iran’s labor laws. They also say the stipulations it refers to should be annulled as soon as possible.
Ali Khodaei, a member of the Supreme Labor Council, believes that with these measures the government is testing workers' tolerance threshold. "The workers are not silent,” he told ILNA news agency, “and if the letter is not retracted as soon as possible, they can expect a serious reaction.”
Long-Serving Workers Tested to the Limit
Inflation and the cost of basic goods are not taken into account when the government is determining workers' wages. For this reason, while the poverty line in Iran is currently estimated at about 12 million tomans, minimum wage is 2.6 million tomans. This is likely to be increased to a maximum of around 3 million tomans in 2021, still far short of what employees need to survive and meet their needs.
Abdol Sheibani, a vegetable oil factory worker in Khuzestan, told IranWire that despite 23 years of experience, he is still only receiving a salary of less than three million tomans. He and his children live in absolute poverty and can envisage no future for themselves.
"In a time when there is no fair relationship between the worker and the employer,” he said, “if it were not for the Social Security Organization's requirement to increase the annual minimum wage, the employers would have starved us by now. The President and the ombudsman know that the letter is utterly cruel and inhumane.”
Delayed wages and payment arrears, as well as the general lack of job security and the consequences of badly-planned privatizations, have put further pressure on the working community in recent years.
"Why doesn’t the Deputy Minister just order the mass suicide of workers?” Sheibani said. “We’ve faced inflation of several hundred percent and have extremely unfair wages. But according to this letter, we are to be denied the same percentage increase in annual income. Do they not see that the workers are hungry?"
No Real Support from Unions in Hock to Government
Sattar Rahmani, an activist and member of the International Union for the Protection of Iranian Workers, told IranWire that he believed the letter would not be implemented, but that it would be used to give the employer an excuse to put maximum pressure on employees.
“They are drawing people’s attention to this letter in order to impose their desired figures on workers in 2021,” he said. “In spite of inflation, they want to impose a cap of something close to 25 percent on the increase to the minimum wage in the coming years. According to Article 41 of the Labor Law, wages must increase according to the general inflation rate in addition that of the household subsistence basket."
Moreover, he added, laborers in Iran have no real recourse to an organized body that will come to their defense. "Bargaining over workers' wages should be undertaken by impartial representatives of the government, the employer and the workers' representatives. But in Iran, the government itself is the largest employer, and the smaller ones are companies that are dependent on the government. Official workers' representatives, from the Workers' House and the Supreme Labor Council to the Workers' Union and the Islamic Workers' Council, are all affiliated with the regime and are therefore not real representatives. In reality they take money from the government and act as the baton of the Islamic Republic on workers' heads."
"If independent unions existed, they could exert relative control over the affairs of the workers and, in a way, bring about a balance of power. In post-revolutionary Iran, independent workers' councils were formed in many factories and briefly challenged the fledgling regime. But in a short time, all of them were crushed by the government, and the independent councils were dissolved and replaced by Islamic councils."
Riding Roughshod Over Labor Laws
Mehri Jafari, a lawyer and labor rights activist, told IranWire that the vice president's letter was contrary to the spirit of the national labor law and also worked in the employer's favor by disrupting the employer-employee relationship.
“The law intends to restrict the employer's hand in issuing short-term contracts, and in extending the contract via a new, basic contract. It aims to prevent the employer from manipulating wages and changing working conditions to the detriment of the worker. That is why labor laws are passed in all countries."
She believes that although labor law in Iran has huge gaps in terms of the protection of workers' rights, this particular case is in stark contrast to the spirit of the labor law in general and to some of its specific provisions. “The provisions state that the continuation of a worker's employment, if there is a need for the job, means the continuation of the contract. Even if the contract between the worker and the employer has a limited duration but is to be extended for the following year, it will not be considered a new contract. Considering it as new is a misinterpretation of the law and contrary to both the collective inference and the basic rights of the worker."
"How can a worker who has worked hard for years, accumulated knowledge and gained experience, be placed on the payroll as if he has just started, with the lowest level of experience? Nowhere in the world can you use a worker like a slave in this way.
"The government seems to be paying attention to its own budget instead of representing the people. It ignores the salaries of all employees covered by the Social Security Organization so that it can easily shrink their contracts and save up enough funds for itself. That is, a government that is supposed to represent workers' rights is to their detriment and against them."
Mehri Jafari looks to the other side of the story: one that shows that wanton disregard for people’s lives and livelihoods will in turn adversely affect the regime. "You cannot, with a few thoughtless letters, destabilize the lives of a large part of society, ignore their experiences, and sit and watch to see what painful things happen to them, because the production and service cycle must have two balanced ends.
"Lawyers, public figures, domestic organizations and even international labor organizations must deal decisively with letters and guidelines such as these, and prevent such decisions from being carried out."
Related coverage:
The Workers' House: Supporter of Trade Unions or Tool of Suppression?
Worker Commits Suicide in Oil Field Because of Unpaid Wages
Netherlands Union Calls on Rouhani to Respect Workers’ Rights
International Trade Union Federation Calls on Iran to Release Activists
Πηγή:
Labor Activists Slam Government’s New Contracts Proposal
The Tudeh Party of Iran strongly condemns the armed attack on the office of the Iraqi Communist Party in Najaf
The Tudeh Party of Iran has learned that, on the eve of parliamentary
elections in Iraq, the Iraqi Communist Party’s office in Najaf was the
target of an attack by armed groups in the early hours of Friday 5
February, which resulted in a serious fire and extensive damage to the
fraternal party’s premises. Fortunately, no one was physically hurt in
the attack. The Tudeh Party of Iran categorically condemns this
[cowardly] attack – reminiscent of attacks by thugs and mobs on our
party’s offices in the difficult years after the [Iranian] Revolution –
which has no purpose but to crush the forces of peace and progress.
The general strategy of the Iraqi Communist Party has always been to
maintain peace and order, to defend democratic rights and freedoms
against dark-minded forces, and to counter divisiveness and sectarianism
in Iraqi politics and society. Iraqi comrades have firmly defended and
actively participated in the people’s protests seeking their rights
[over the last year]. For this reason, Iraqi comrades and their offices
have been repeatedly attacked by thugs, leading to the murder of a
number of comrades and the ensuing chaos, intimidation and unrest –
including at their offices in Baghdad, Basra, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, [and
now Najaf].
“These cowardly acts did not, and will not, undermine
the will of the Communists, which has been repeatedly tested during the
party’s 86 years,” said the Political Bureau of the Iraqi Communist
Party in a statement following the recent attack on the party’s office
in Najaf.
In denouncing the most recent of these attacks on the
Iraqi Communist Party, the Tudeh Party of Iran expresses and reaffirms
its fraternal and militant solidarity with the Iraqi comrades.
Tudeh Party of Iran
5 February 2021
Πηγή:
The Tudeh Party of Iran strongly condemns the armed attack on the office of the Iraqi Communist Party in Najaf
The Tudeh Party of Iran [2019]: The Theocratic regime means the rule of thugs and plunderers over our country and people, It must be resisted!
Dear Compatriots,
Ali Khamenei – the Supreme Leader of the despotic regime – while confirming [in a speech] that the rise in the price of petrol, like all other key economic-political decisions, has taken place with his agreement, has denounced as “villains” those people that have had enough of tyranny and deprivation under “Islamic rule” and has in effect ordered a bloody crackdown on the popular protests. Following Khamenei’s speech, the so-called “Reformers” in the Parliament immediately withdrew their emergency bill that had demanded petrol prices be returned to their previous level.
In today’s [parliamentary] session, the Speaker of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, addressing Khamenei’s speech, said, “After hearing [his] profound” speech [it is essential that members of parliament] follow the direction outlined and seriously pursue the concerns over the economic problems.” Subsequent to Khamenei’s speech yesterday, Ibrahim Raisi, the notorious criminal now heading the regime’s judiciary, also made a statement demanding that all prosecutors across the country “Collaborate with the police and security forces to enforce the law by decisively targeting the thugs, those affiliated with counter-revolutionary streams and the infiltrators who have targeted the security of the people and society with their subversive acts.” The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened the protestors and working people and declared that it will deal decisively with any “disturbance”.
As per its usual approach, in order to implement its plan for a bloody and widespread crackdown on the popular protests, the regime has shut down the [main] means of communication, – including the internet and a large part of the country’s mobile-phone network – and has severely disrupted all forms of public transport, including the Metro lines in Tehran and Isfahan. Several schools and universities have been shut down in various cities and, according to the latest reports, more than 1,000 protesters have been detained with hundreds injured and dozens killed in violent and repressive [counter-]operations. Despite all this repression, the popular protests continue in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, Sari as well as most cities in the provinces of Kurdistan and Khuzestan.
The manner with which the regime and its leaders have responded to the people’s [legitimate and] righteous protests against the destructive and anti-national policies of the government, show once again that one cannot expect anything other than repression, trampling upon the people’s rights, and tyranny from the despotic regime. What now prevails in our homeland is the rule of the dark-minded, who have no intention of pursuing the national interest and the will of the people, and whose main concern is the survival and continuance of their despotic and oppressive rule at any cost.
Historical experience and the evidence from the struggle of the peoples of the region have shown that it is only by persevering the united and coherent struggle of the people [along the path of radical change] that tyrannical rule can be seriously challenged and pushed back step-by-step. It is the duty of all progressive and freedom-seeking forces to support this popular uprising under the current critical circumstances.
The Tudeh Party of Iran, while condemning the brutal and bloody crackdown on the righteous and oppressed people of our homeland, once again calls upon all progressive Iranian forces to defend the people’s struggle with all their might. We also call on all progressive and freedom-seeking forces around the world to express their solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people and raise their voices against the [savage] repression [being meted out by] the regime.
The Tudeh Party of Iran
18 November 2019
Πηγή:
The Tudeh Party of Iran: The Theocratic regime means the rule of thugs and plunderers over our country and people, It must be resisted!
Δευτέρα 15 Φεβρουαρίου 2021
Μέση Ανατολή [Δυτική Ασία]
Forward towards “another alternative” - Tudeh Party of Iran
(An excerpt from Nameh Mardom, the central organ of the Tudeh Party of Iran, 4 January 2021.)
The year 2020 can rightly be seen as a year that has had terrifying
developments and unpredictable consequences for the lives of most of the
world’s population, not least the people of Iran. One of the most
disturbing of these developments at the present time is the recent
threatening manoeuvring of Trump’s fascist grouping to stoke tensions
and lay the ground for a military conflict with Iran in the last days of
the failed president’s tenure at the White House.
One of the
[central] characteristics of the situation of world affairs in 2020 is
the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, a year on from its
outbreak, most major Western countries and many developing countries –
such as Iran – are still heavily absorbed in. This avoidable pandemic
has had and will have very negative and widespread consequences in the
areas of health, society, economy and politics. It is already clear that
across these countries, the prospects for 2021 and the future are of
negative and unpredictable consequences for hundreds of millions of
people. In Iran, the public coronavirus vaccination programme that could
save the people from the clutches of the disease has become a major
problem, and – by the nature of our country’s political economy – the
vaccine has become a commodity and a factor for speculation. The fact
that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not been able to purchase vaccines
due to the economic and banking sanctions regime imposed by the US
clearly shows our homeland’s special situation under the current
crisis.
Another of the characteristics of 2020 was the sheer
inability of the capitalist system – especially the neoliberal economic
model – to meet the vital responsibility of protecting public health and
preventing the loss of approximately 1.5 million human lives.
Furthermore, in capitalist countries both large and small – including
our own – the processes by which the rich get richer, the interests of
large capital are protected, and the deployment of the digital economy
has furthered, have continued unabated. In Iran too, the growth of the
digital economy – relying on the severe exploitation of cheap labour in
the absence of trade union rights – is also expanding for the purpose of
so-called “wealth creation”. President Rouhani’s government also uses
policies similar to those in the US for the purpose of wealth creation,
under the banner of “economic growth”, by artificially inflating share
prices on the Tehran stock market.
What became crystal clear in
2020 was that global capitalism cannot protect the health of the people
at the same time as protecting the interests of the rich! Therefore, in
the future, the priority of policymakers, brokers and analysts in major
capitalist countries will be to protect the interests of the rich and
large capital, even if that comes at the expense of the sacrificing of
peoples’ lives in those same countries.
The only “alternative” that
global capitalism can offer the post-coronavirus world, at best, is a
return to the supposedly “normal” state of affairs or a situation
similar to that pre-coronavirus, i.e. austerity (but much tougher), the
expansion of the digital economy based upon cheap labour, and the
continuation of state borrowing at the expense of the working people. In
this version of “alternative”, everything will be geared in favour of
protecting the economic and political position of the upper strata of
society and the world will remain exposed to, and defenceless against,
future threats like those posed by a moribund economic model and
especially the climate crisis.
The key question being raised is:
instead of this inhumane and extremely dangerous “alternative” being
reimposed on humanity by the capitalist policymakers and their experts,
could there be “another alternative”?
As far as our own country is
concerned, the Tudeh Party of Iran believes that “another alternative”
is indeed possible, provided there exist the conditions to effectively
and freely organise and campaign for this alternative and its
implementation for the benefit of the working class and other strata of
working and marginalised people of Iran, i.e. the majority of the
country’s population. The experience of contemporary history has taught
us that “another alternative” for Iran, i.e. the possibility of
fundamental democratic changes, is not an automatically guaranteed
historical process but rather follows a complex and tangled course in
the fight against dictatorship. Experience also shows that in any given
country or society, the possibility of implementation of [social]
fundamental changes as part of the agenda for [political] struggle is
contingent on the stage of that country’s social development and its own
particular balance of existing forces.
The Tudeh Party of Iran has
always emphasised the fact that under the present concrete conditions of
our country, the only way forward – in order to make fundamental change
possible – requires the complete elimination of the absolute rule of
Velayat-e Faqih (the theocratic Supreme Leadership). The establishment
of a “united anti-dictatorship front” is the first step in this
direction of changing the balance of forces in the country.
Excerpts from the statement of the Tudeh Party of Iran The Iranian Regime’s Imprudent and Harmful Policies in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Religious Leader of the anti-popular regime of Iran, on Friday 8 January declared that, “The import [to Iran] of the US and UK-made [coronavirus] vaccines is banned.“ At another point during those same remarks – which laid bare his complete lack of knowledge of existing vaccines and his ridiculous lies about the hidden intentions behind the vaccines – Khamenei pointed to the deaths in the US resulting from COVID-19 and added, “If their Pfizer factory can make vaccines, they should first use it for themselves… Perhaps they want to test the vaccine on other nations!”
Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, reacted to the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader by stating that, “The organisation has repeatedly stressed not to politicise the coronavirus and now says please let us not politicise this vaccine either!”
Also reacting to Khamenei’s remarks, Dr. Katherine O’Brien, Director of the WHO’s Head Department of Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals, stated, “This organisation, and especially the COVAX facility, have different options in its vaccine supply basket, which make it available to countries, based on their needs and conditions, especially in terms of vaccine transportation and storage facilities at low temperatures […] The existing vaccines are produced by pharmaceutical factories in various countries, which will make it more or less easier to access [depending on the preferred option].”
In response to Khamenei’s irresponsible lies, it should be noted that vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca-University of Oxford and, in recent days, Moderna-NIAID, have all been approved by the World Health Organisation.
While the world hurtles into a third round of the COVID-19 pandemic, the remarks of the Supreme Leader of the Iranian theocratic regime regarding vaccines for this deadly disease – which has infected more than a million Iranians thus far, with tens of thousands of people having already died from the disease, and tens of thousands more hospitalised throughout the country – are tantamount to playing a dangerous game with the lives of millions of Iran’s citizens.
Khamenei and other regime leaders, like other anti-people politicians across the world, including the likes of Trump, have not only denied the seriousness of the risk of this deadly pandemic from the outset, but have created a major humanitarian disaster in Iran by disregarding the health and well-being of the country’s citizens.
Ali Khamenei called the coronavirus outbreak on March of last year “a trouble [that] is not that big” and later added, “It is said that a part [of the virus] has been fabricated especially targeting Iran, by studying Iranian genetics [the genetic makeup of the Iranian people].”
Denouncing the imprudent and anti-people statements made by Ali Khamenei and other regime leaders, and their lies and charlatanism regarding an “Iranian vaccine” seemingly being developed by the IRGC, as well as the sales of the vaccine on the black market by regime affiliates, the Tudeh Party of Iran believes that with public protest, the regime must be forced to retreat from this destructive policy.
The necessity of providing vaccines for all people and providing it free of charge to all citizens is an urgent and absolute necessity.
The Tudeh Party of Iran once again calls upon all freedom-loving and anti-dictatorship forces to work together to help the suffering people of our country improve their lives. In particular, we must make the critical fight with the coronavirus pandemic and defence of the public health a national goal!
Tudeh Party of Iran
9 January 2020